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Transcript 418A
The Descendancy of Black People [Gen 10:6]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I would like to know if black people are descended from Ham, one of the sons of Noah.
HC: Yes, that is correct. The residents of Africa, of North Africa, of Babylon, of the land of Canaan, are the descendants of Ham.
CALLER: Okay. In my Bible, the Living Bible illustrated, there is a footnote that Ham was not the ancestor of the Negro as once erroneously supposed. Now from the information that you have just supplied me, I would like to get this out of the Bible.
HC: Well, the book that you're referring to is not the Bible. You can depend upon that.
CALLER: The book, "The Way," is not considered the Bible?
HC: That is not the Bible. That is a paraphrase of some kind, and it is not the Bible. Now we read in Genesis 10, in verse 6, "The sons of Ham, Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan, the sons of Cush; Seba and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha, and the sons of Raamah; Sheba and Dedan." Then it goes on and talks about Cush, that he begat Nimrod, and so on.
Now Cush is related to Ethiopia, which of course is in Africa. As near as we can tell, the inhabitants of Africa and North Africa, which would be Egypt and right up into the fertile crescent, .Mesopotamia, where Babel and Erech were, and the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, which later on became the land of Israel, were all the descendants of Ham. Now that doesn't mean that the sons of Japheth or the sons of Shem did not also come into these lands. Nor does it mean anything bad that certain peoples are the descendants of Ham. There is nothing negative in the Bible concerning this particularly. It simply means that Ham was one of the three sons of Noah, and certain nations came from Ham and certain nations came from Japheth and certain nations came from Shem. I'm not even certain how all this devised.
CALLER: Okay. Then I am to assume that "The Way" is not the Bible.
HC: Anything that calls itself a paraphrase of the Bible is not the Bible at all. It is simply the work of men who are trying to develop some kind of a commentary on the Bible, but it must never be considered to be the Bible.
CALLER: Fantastic. Thank you very much. Good night.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.